Congress Plays a Fiscal Game of Chicken

The clock is ticking, and lawmakers are embattled in a game of chicken over raising the debt ceiling. On September 30th, at the 11th hour, Congress passed legislation to avoid a partial shutdown and keep the government up and running through December 3rd. That bill was merely a stop-gap measure and included a provision to suspend the debt ceiling. The collective sigh of relief didn’t last long, and now Congress must address the elephant in the room, the debt ceiling.

The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of money the United States Treasury can borrow each month to pay its debts. The borrowed money goes to pay for Social Security benefits, Medicare reimbursements, and other essential things such as tax refunds. However, similar to Americans’ borrowing abilities, the US Treasury can’t write a blank check, nor can it spend like a teenage girl with Daddy’s credit card. To continue borrowing money, the Treasury must get Congressional approval. The approval to increase the debt ceiling would allow the US to make good on its loans and continue to pay its current bills.

Congress instituted the debt limit as part of the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917. Before the establishment of the debt ceiling, Congress had the tedious task of “approving every issuance of debt separately.” Since then, the debt ceiling has been raised or suspended over 100 times, 80 times…